Conquering fear and first descents in Patagonia

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June 3, 2020

This morning, Ben and I remained silent. There wasn’t much to say, or maybe we just couldn’t find the right words. Some things are better left unsaid. We are tired, scared and very aware this is not the headspace to be entering Chile’s infamous Pascua Canyon.

We had been traveling together through South America for almost three months. Our journey started on the Argentinian side of the Andes with a complicated high-water descent of the Rio Tunuyan. Then we crossed the border to Chile and headed south to complete the first descent of the Rio Ano Nuevo, and the Patagonia Triple Crown: the Rio Baker, the Bravo and the Pascua, which had been attempted in 2017 by a team led by Evan Garcia.

[ Also watch: Nouria Newman Takes On Patagonia’s Three Toughest Rivers ]

In the last couple years, I have been lucky to paddle with expedition kayaker Ben Stookesberry and learn from him. He’s a mentor, adventure partner and good friend. Our journeys have had their ups—successful first descents, delicious picnics and marginal dance moves. And downs—four-day portages, honest grinch time, broken gear, lost drone, bad lines, savage bushwhacks and injuries, to name a few.

But this was the lowest.

This morning I woke up with the worst hangover of my life. Coffee has no taste and I struggle to eat my oatmeal. This is the end of our trip. Our good friend Erik Boomer has left after joining us for a month of exploratory kayaking. Our team lost not only its best dancer and asado aficionado but also the optimist of the group.

Ben and I could have called it and just done easy laps on the Rio Baker and the Futaleufu. But we decided to give this trip a last push. We drove south until there was no more road, all the way to the very end of the Carretera Austral. We wanted to try to paddle the Rio Pascua and see if it was as scary as everyone says. It was. And here we are, right where we thought we wanted to be.

[ Also watch: Nouria Newman’s Scary Experience On Solo Expedition In India ]

We spent four days bushwhacking and paddling flatwater with 100-pound loaded creek boats in heavy headwinds to get here. On the way, we portaged around the gnarliest whitewater I have ever seen. Watching from the shore, I could not stop imagining what it would be like to drop into one of those monster rapids. It is quite something to feel like you are in a rainstorm standing 100 feet above river level, to hear the roar, and see hydraulics bigger than houses. It is humbling and terrifying.

I cannot stop thinking about all the water in the box canyon we are going to paddle.

By the hour, our confidence drops. Doubt settles in. The what ifs keep popping up. On the second big portage we realize the water line is almost at the trees. “I am no fucking hydrologist, but this river is fucking high,” Ben says.

I was just as scared but turning around isn’t an option. Not yet.

If the Pascua weren’t hard and scary we wouldn’t be there, I say. We agree to check the first rapids of the canyon before making our final decision. Whether we will paddle through or hike out, we have to see for ourselves. And that’s what we will do as soon as we finish our breakfast.

[ Also watch: Pro Kayakers Vs. Whirlpools ]

What if it is too high? What if there is a death hole in the middle of the canyon? What if we are not good enough?

Coffee now cold, it’s time to get going. What Ben doesn’t know is today is March 13, and it’s a special day for me. On this day four years ago, I lost one of my best friends to the river.

Today I am hungover, not from any alcohol but life. I am sad but also incredibly grateful to still be here, chugging cold coffee, scared and overwhelmed. I want to crawl into a ball and cry. I want to tell Ben, but I can’t. It is not the time or the place.

Instead, I tell him two days later with a warm cup of coffee in hand after we successfully paddle out.

Nouria Newman started paddling at the age of four in the French Alps and is one of the world’s most accomplished kayakers.

Nouria Newman on the Engano River in Patagonia, Chile. | Featured photo: Erik Boomer / Red Bull Content Pool

Why the job of the professional river guide will never die

By

Virginia Marshall

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June 3, 2020

River guides like ARTA’s Billie Prosser are the voice of the canyon. | Photo: Virginia Marshall

Impassable Canyon. The name conjures a rocky defile so steep, no trails penetrate its shadowy depths. Just the sight of it turned Lewis and Clark on their heels. The canyon’s granite ramparts tower more than a vertical mile above the boulder-choked rapids of the Middle Fork of the Salmon—as if the sheer walls of Yosemite have been transplanted to central Idaho.

“This canyon is in the heart of the Idaho Batholith,” ARTA (American River Touring Association) lead guide, Billie Prosser, tells the spellbound passengers aboard her 18-foot oar rig. I nod and smile in what I hope is a convincing simulacrum of understanding. Fortunately, Prosser saves me, dispensing interpretive nuggets with the same quiet competence and measured pace with which she rows the technical low-water rapids of the Middle Fork in mid-September.

These north-flowing, sparklingly clear waters follow a natural fault line, she continues, carving a front-row seat to the state’s spectacular geology. Tens of millions of years ago, colliding tectonic plates shoveled prehistoric seafloor sediments deep into the earth’s crust, then thrust the rock skyward. We are looking at the cooled cores of powerful, dinosaur-era volcanoes. I’d been thinking, “If these walls could talk…” Now they are, thanks to Prosser.

Too often, when I’m exploring somewhere new, my guide is of the paperback or spiral-bound variety. Joining Prosser and her ARTA colleagues—Idaho river managers Tanner Welch and Tess Howell, and assistant guide, Abby Hudson—for this trip, I realize what I’ve been missing: the human connection. It’s a familiarity and affinity for a place—whether it be a river, range or coast—that professional guides cultivate through years of observing, studying and inhabiting these environments. It’s visceral and highly individual, and it sure as hell isn’t something you can buy on Amazon.

Several miles into the upper canyon, we pull ashore at a spacious bench shaded by Ponderosa pines and follow Prosser up a narrow footpath. She climbs past yellow-flowering sagebrush to the base of an overhanging cliff and waits while our eyes find a panel of human and animal figures, painted rusty red on the smooth stone. We learn these pictographs were made some 500 to 1,000 years ago by the Tukudeka (or Sheepeater) people, a resourceful and reclusive band of Shoshoni who once thrived in the craggiest canyons and most remote ranges of the Sawtooth Mountains.

As a bald eagle turns lazy circles in the thermals over our heads, we speculate about the drawings’ possible meaning. Then Prosser shares an illustrative experience she had while rowing with a Zuni elder on the Colorado River in Arizona. At a petroglyph site she had puzzled over on previous trips, the elder demystified the complex pattern of pecking and etching: “It is a map of the Grand Canyon.”

[ Also read: Tandem Sea Kayaking Down The Grand Canyon ]

True, it wasn’t the map of the canyon Prosser and her fellow river guides knew like the backs of their sun-beaten hands. It didn’t reflect the same ways of relating to the land and water as those handed down by Western explorers, geographers and cartographers. The petroglyph map was cryptic, Prosser mused, only because modern river runners have inherited a different form of literacy.

Below Big Creek, the walls of Impassable Canyon close in for the final 20-mile run to the Middle Fork’s confluence with the Main Salmon. Later, we will pitch our last camp on a white sand beach and watch a full moon drape dazzling white light over the granite ridges. Right now, however, the sun is flaring warm and welcome above the canyon rim. Beyond the next bend, Veil Falls billows like a beaded curtain in the breeze.

I have yet to crack the spine on my 382-page The Middle Fork—A Guide. Instead, I’m reading the river. I’m listening to my companions’ stories. I’m watching Prosser articulate the subtle tapestry of currents with the dip of an oar, the book’s mile-by-mile map sheets long forgotten in my drybag.

Virginia Marshall is a former editor of Rapid and Adventure Kayak magazines.

River guides like ARTA’s Billie Prosser are the voice of the canyon. | Featured photo: Virginia Marshall

Rob Thompson is making the world’s first marine plastic recycled kayaks

By

Jeff Moag

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June 3, 2020

Rob Thompson is cleaning up the ocean, one kayak at a time—literally. | Photo: Courtesy Odyssey Innovations

The idea came to Rob Thompson on the coast of Cornwall, in southwest England. Staring at the bulging bags of trash he and his friends had collected from a remote cove, and then at the plastic kayaks they’d used to reach it, Thompson experienced what he calls “a bit of a Eureka moment.”

The avid diver had been organizing cleanups for years, helping to remove tons of plastic from the seabed and remote beaches like this one. So much, in fact, he didn’t know what to do with it all. Just chucking it in the bin didn’t feel right, and his first idea—to recycle ocean plastic into beach toys and Frisbees—had a fatal flaw. “We kept finding those things on the beaches when we did our cleanups,” he says. “I didn’t want to make something that would become part of the problem.”

The key was to turn the rubbish into something people would treasure, which is where the kayaks come in. “We got to the end of the cleanup and we had our bags full of plastic and the kayaks sitting next to them and I thought, ‘Ah, that’s it!’ We can actually make kayaks out of the plastic we collect, and then use them to get out and recover more marine plastic.”

Thompson is telling me this over Skype. He’s sitting at his kitchen counter, which doubles as world headquarters for his one-man startup, Odyssey Innovations. He looks like a young Richard Branson, with a broad smile and long blond hair, but he’s a conservationist, not a business tycoon. “I never got ‘round to writing a business plan,” he admits.

Thompson came to the recycling game with no experience in manufacturing, no knowledge of chemistry or engineering. He wasn’t even much of a kayaker. But he was very, very persistent.

When recyclers in the U.K. turned him away, saying it was impossible to make kayak-grade plastic from beach trash, Thompson looked farther afield. He found a company in Denmark with the required technology, and then he discovered an abundant source of high-quality plastic in the abandoned fishing nets littering the ocean.

[ Also read: Brothers Build Plastic-Water-Bottle Kayaks To Save Indonesia’s Longest River ]

With his diving friends, he recovered nets from the wreck of the Conqueror, a trawler that ran aground in 1977 with her tackle on deck and 250 tons of mackerel in her holds. “The shipwreck was completely disintegrated, just broken-up plates on the seabed. But the only damage to the nets is where they had rubbed against those metal plates,” he says.

The pristine state of the nets was a stark reminder of how incredibly persistent plastic waste can be, but Thompson also recognized an opportunity. Here was a ready supply of high-quality plastic that, once cleaned of sand and mackerel bits and processed in the Danish facility, could be used to make kayaks.

Marine plastic is recycled to make a kayak. | Photo: Clare James

“Once I got the mix working right for rotomolding, I approached Palm and said, ‘Fancy giving this a go?’” Thompson says. Best known in North America for drysuits and technical paddling gear, Palm Equipment also makes Islander, Dagger and Wilderness Systems kayaks for sale throughout Europe. Marketing director Paul Robertson took the call.

“When Rob came to us, he was essentially offering the Holy Grail—a material we could use in the same molds we’re already using, at the same temperatures, and get the same sort of product,” he says.

The company had been experimenting with recycled plastic kayaks for a decade, but those boats were made using fresh off-cuts from new plastic. Thompson proposed they mold kayaks from material that had been lost at sea for years, sometimes decades.

[ Also read: Pros And Cons Of Different Kayak Materials ]

When the first 20-kilo bag of recycled plastic arrived, Robertson poured it into a Dagger RPM mold. Then he took the upcycled classic to the river, bashing ends in shallow wave holes, bouncing down manky rapids and hucking the odd waterfall. Long before the boat finally succumbed to the abuse, Robertson was convinced.

The recycled polyethylene worked, and while Robertson wouldn’t recommend it for a state-of-the-art creek boat, it was perfect for the Islander line of recreational kayaks. The company’s Paradise single-seater and Paradise II double were the world’s first marine recycled kayaks when they debuted in January 2019. This season, Islander plans to make two more recycled models available, the Calypso and Fiesta.

Thompson has given some kayaks to beach cleanup groups, while others have been sold online and through Islander’s network of retailers. Many go to liveries interested in putting their environmental credentials front-and-center, Robertson says. “We sent boats to a livery in Spain that allows you to take a kayak out free of charge, providing you come back with a bag full of rubbish.”

[ See the largest selection of boats and gear in the Paddling Buyer’s Guide ]

Thompson aims to sell about 250 recycled marine kayaks this year, funneling the modest profits back into his fledgling organization. Last year the group removed approximately 130,000 pounds of plastic from the ocean and is on track to double the haul this year. The material has been reborn as all manner of things, including the stages for the Glastonbury Music Festival. Only a fraction makes its way into kayaks.

The kayaks are available only in flat black, due to the unique formulation and UV protection additives used in the recycled plastic. The sit-on-tops start at $555 USD and can currently be shipped anywhere in the world—except North America and China, due to licensing agreements. This may soon change as Thompson is in talks now with a U.S.-based manufacturer to bring the recycling process stateside.

Rob Thompson is cleaning up the ocean, one kayak at a time—literally. | Photo: Courtesy Odyssey Innovations

Kevin Callan on how to win paddling’s greatest debates

By

Kevin Callan

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June 2, 2020

Battle Royale — Canoe versus kayak? Oh, put a cup in it. | Photo: Gabriel Rivett-Carnac

On a quiet Saturday morning over tea and toast, I typed out a question on Facebook. “What are the top paddling debates?” I asked my friends. Before noon, I had over 200 responses. By dinner there were 400 replies, and more than 600 greeted me the next morning.

I had touched a chord.

People love a good debate and waxing on about their opinions. It was no surprise to me the most hotly contested replies on my post centered on the vessel itself. You know how this goes—clashing over canoe versus kayak, new aramid technology versus traditional cedar canvas, keel versus no keel, and solo versus tandem.

Then came the paddle wars: bent shaft or straight? J-stroke or goon? Single blade or double? A close third was camp gear—tents versus hammocks, down sleeping bag or synthetic, stuff your tent or roll it, water filters or chemical treatments, groundsheet inside the tent or outside.

No technique, tradition or personal preference was off limits. For every person celebrating the efficiency of single-carry portages, someone was heralding the safety of doubling. How is the word portage pronounced, anyway? How about comfortable canoe packs versus cavernous barrels? One lone voice cried out for a return to measuring in rods instead of meters but was unanimously ignored. Lifestyle choices were also disputed—dogs or no dogs, bushcraft versus survival, fish fry versus catch and release, and bathing suits versus skinny dipping.

[ Also read: Paddlers’ Rules About Portage Trail Etiquette ]

It was my girlfriend who added in the controversy on skinny dipping. Interesting!

Some debates I was less familiar with—DivaCup versus tampons, orange pekoe versus spruce tea, squat versus She-Wee. And some oddities too—cat hole versus carrying out, two-ply versus surrounding vegetation, real beer versus IPA, weed versus liquor, whisky versus whiskey, bringing a less fit friend versus bear spray, true experts versus social media wannabes.

To me, it reads like a long list of conversation starters for my next backcountry campfire with friends. Some paddlers didn’t appreciate the thread, however. One was turned off by the abundance of booze talk. Another used the thread as an opportunity to knock a competitor’s brand. One gentleman opposed the entire posting. He would have much rather read what all paddlers have in common, with a rallying cry to band together for our common good, rather than read the banter.

[ Also read: Why You Need To Skinny Dip On Your Next Trip ]

“I realize why these topics of debate are popular for writers like you, Kevin. I get it. They work. People read them,” he wrote. “That’s cool, but it adds nothing of benefit to our community. I hope you will consider doing a well-thought-out article on what we all have in common and why it is important for us to stick together.”

I commend his point. I’ve listened to too many paddlers who feel the need to preach their views rather than exchange them. Who cares what your canoe is made of, or how you propel it forward, as long as you paddle. Skinny dip if you like, just be thoughtful of others while doing so. And does it really matter if you pack whisky or whiskey, as long as you bring enough to share?

All the same, bouncing ideas off one another about boats, bow saws and bug repellents keeps us talking. It connects us around what we have in common—our much bigger and collective passion for getting on the water—and keeps us learning, even if we don’t always agree. It doesn’t matter to me whether you squat or use a She-Wee. What matters is we enjoy those choices on trip and hopefully intrigue a few others to come out and play in the woods as well… So long as they stuff their tent, not roll it. That’s just plain silly.

Kevin Callan is the author of 18 books, including the best-selling The Happy Camper and a popular series of paddling guides.

Canoe versus kayak? Oh, put a cup in it. | Featured photo: Gabriel Rivett-Carnac

Why Mike Ranta is busy building the world’s largest canoe paddle

By

David Jackson

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June 2, 2020

When Mike Ranta dreams, he dreams big. During the past year, the two-time cross-Canada canoeist has been building the world’s biggest canoe paddle.

He calls it the Big Dipper.

“I was aiming for 100 feet, and then I threw on an extra 10 or so,” Ranta says of the 110-foot-long, 15-foot-tall paddle he’s building in the tiny town of Killarney, Ontario. Originally from Atikokan, Ontario, expedition paddler Ranta spent hundreds of hours building in 2019—except for a six-week hiatus in the summer to paddle from Fort McMurray, Alberta, to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

To create the paddle, Ranta sawed and fastened 350 boards and beams to build sections of the paddle that were later fastened together. He estimates he used more than 1,000 bolts and five gallons of Titebond glue. Once complete, he expects the Big Dipper will weigh more than three tons. The paddle is now partially assembled, with shaft and blade together. Ranta notes he was only out by about a quarter of an inch in his measurements—pretty impressive for an amateur woodworking paddle maker on a project of this size.

To complicate the build, Ranta left a hollow down the butt end of the paddle and into the shaft to create a time capsule that will be sealed for 200 years. “I tell people to put something in there the size of their heart,” explains Ranta. The capsule is currently open for submissions (thebigdipper.ca).

[ Also read: Mike Ranta’s 6 Easy Steps To Build A Miniature Canoe ]

The idea for the paddle started to carve its way into Ranta’s mind nearly 15 years ago, but he struggled to find a town and purpose where the monolith could exist. When Ranta arrived in Killarney, Ontario, on the shore of Georgian Bay, during his third attempt at crossing Canada by canoe, it all clicked. When Killarney was founded in 1820, it was known as Shebahonaning, meaning safe canoe passage.

Once complete, the paddle will adorn a small bluff along Georgian’s Bay beautiful rocky coast, set in front of Killarney Mountain Lodge’s newly constructed log convention center—also the largest of its kind in the world. The Big Dipper’s unveiling will celebrate the town’s 200th anniversary and add to its reputation as a premier canoeing destination.

“It wasn’t a Dragon’s Den moment by any means,” says Ranta about his agreement with Holden Rhodes, the owner of Killarney Mountain Lodge resort. “I was like, ‘Hey man, want to build the world’s biggest paddle?’ and the rest is history.”

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: See all regular size canoe paddles ]

“You’ll be able to see it from the lodge, from the lake, maybe even from space,” adds Ranta.

The project hasn’t come without learning curves. The biggest issue for Ranta has been his allergy to cedar dust, a serious problem when sanding a 110-foot-long cedar canoe paddle. The paddle was also nearly ruined during a late October storm when the wind blew the shaft off oversized sawhorses. Luckily, there were no injuries to person or paddle.

In many ways, the project is not so different than Ranta’s massive canoe trips, with similar endurance and commitment needed. “When you first start, it’s hard to see the end,” he says. “Some people can’t fathom something that will take a year to complete.”

The Big Dipper will be sanded, stained and erected in time for the Canada Day weekend celebrations scheduled for July 2020. “Everyone is invited,” says Ranta.

Writer David Jackson paddled alongside Mike Ranta from the coast of British Columbia to Killarney, Ontario, in 2017.

Once complete in July 2020, Mike Ranta’s Big Dipper blade will beat
the current record for the world’s largest canoe paddle, which is just 60 feet long and resides near Golden, British Columbia. | Featured photo: Clay Dolan

7 Things You Didn’t Know About Bows

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

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June 2, 2020

Betcha Didn’t Know About...Bows — You’re doing it wrong. | Photo: istockphoto.com/m-gucci

Bow paddlers are unfairly maligned—referred to as bow meat, deadweight and worse. In an effective flatwater tandem team, the bow paddler is the engine, setting cadence and providing power. To aid steering, bow paddlers should know pry, sweep, draw and cross-bow draw strokes. Learn the techniques here.
More than 100 hours of research and testing at UC Berkeley proves there’s a right way to tie your shoelaces. Most kids learn to tie their laces in a weak bow. To find out if you’ve tied the strong or weak version of this knot, sharply pull at the laces at the base of the knot. A weak knot will orient the bow so it’s parallel to the shoe’s tongue, while a strong knot will orient the bow perpendicular to the tongue. If you’ve tied the weak version, you can tie a strong knot by wrapping the shoelace around in the opposite direction when creating the bow’s loop.

[ Also read: 6 Things You Didn’t Know About GORP ]

Sharp and narrow bow lines improve a canoe’s speed and efficiency but make it slice through waves rather than ride up and over them. A canoe with a blunt, wider bow will handle waves and rapids more efficiently. The former is popular in racing designs; the later is popular with whitewater boaters. There’s a whole spectrum in between.
A bowtie manufacturer in California made the world’s largest bowtie. It used 250 yards of black and white polka-dot fabric and stands seven feet tall and 15 feet wide—roughly the size of a great white shark.
Traditional tandem hull designs have a symmetrical bow and stern and can be easily paddled solo by a paddler sitting reverse in the bow. Modern asymmetrical hulls pair a fine-entry bow with fuller stern and widest point of the hull aft of center. The fine entry lines on the bow aid efficiency while a fuller stern keeps the stern from sinking lower in the water as speed increases.
Bow sales surged in popularity following the success of the $1.45 billion Hunger Games franchise, thanks to bow-and-arrow-wielding heroine Katniss Everdeen. The Archery Trade Association estimates 9.9 percent of Americans participated in archery sports in 2015, the year the final Hunger Games film was released.
Q: What goes tick-tock, bow-wow, tick-tock, bow-wow?
A: A watch dog.

You’re doing it wrong. | Photo: istockphoto.com/m-gucci

How Alaska’s Most Iconic Paddling Paradise Escaped Extinction

By

Neil Schulman

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June 2, 2020

I’m lounging on a gravel bar, drinking a beer after a long day on the river and a long search for camp. The Tatshenshini River rushes by snow-capped mountains for another 70 miles to the Gulf of Alaska. The whole time I’m thinking, “What a crappy place for a mine.”

From 1988 to 1993, the Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers—two of the wildest and most gorgeous rivers in North America—teetered between remaining wild rivers and becoming piles of toxic rubble. Thanks to people I’ve never met, this is now one of the largest protected areas in the world.

[ Also read: How Building Plastic Water-Bottle Kayaks Saved Indonesia’s Longest River ]

In the ‘80s, mining company Geddes Resources Limited claimed it found $5 billion of copper under Windy Craggy Mountain, up Tats Creek in the British Columbia portion of the Tatshenshini River. Windy Craggy was in unprotected land ringed by Glacier Bay, Wrangell-St. Elias, and Kluane national parks in the Alaska-Yukon-British Columbia corner. Geddes proposed digging out the mountain into the world’s largest open-pit copper mine, piling the tailings on a glacier, piping the slurry to Haines, Alaska, and selling it in Japan. They would chew 50 million tons of rock off the mountain every day for 15 years.

At the time, the odds seemed against the rivers. The economy wasn’t great and Geddes promised jobs. Few people had even seen the remote river. The fight started with local river runners, climbers, bear biologists and wilderness lovers in Haines and Whitehorse, then spread to Victoria and Juneau. Then it went from state, provincial and territory capitals to Ottawa and Washington, D.C. International conservation groups took up the cause. When Al Gore was elected Vice President in 1992, the writing was on the wall, since the pipeline would require a treaty. In 1993, British Columbia denied the mine leases and designated Tatshenshini Provincial Park, creating a four-park complex protecting the entire Alsek-Tatshenshini basin.

Drinking my beer on our gravel bar in the park, I think back to my young adulthood during the campaign. The summer after the proposal, when I was a Forest Service seasonal, I heard about the Windy Craggy Mine. It was one of many schemes flitting in and out of the Alaska consciousness, part of the region’s ongoing struggle to balance industrial-scale extraction, tourism, sustainable fisheries, stunning beauty and pristine ecology. Two years later, I was working at a river conservation group. There was a massive poster on the wall, showing rafters floating past icebergs below giant mountains. It was from the campaign against the mine: I’d paddle through the same scene a few days below our gravel bar camp. Back in ‘92, the outfit I worked for was starting to work on a book called How to Save a River. Much of it could have been based on the Tatshenshini campaign. Some was.

[ Also read: Paddlers, Fight For Your Rivers ]

Three decades later, the idea of digging up a mountain next to three national parks and piling toxic tailings on a melting glacier draining into a salmon-bearing river is ridiculous. The Tat has achieved river-trip-of-a-lifetime status, with permits as coveted as the Grand Canyon and the Middle Fork of the Salmon. It took five years to get ours. Outfitters in Haines and Whitehorse base their business on the Tat and other nearby rivers. Fifteen years of copper became 30 years and counting of ecotourism, plus the enduring though harder to quantify value of scenery, grizzly bears, salmon and not having to clean up toxic sludge.

As part of our trip prep, we poured over maps and practiced river rescue. I gave myself another task—I found the old coffee-table book the Tatshenshini Wild campaign produced in the early ‘90s, and I read it cover to cover.

[ Plan your next adventure with the Paddling Trip Guide ]

I’m forever indebted to the river runners, climbers, biologists and others who put their oars, crampons and paddles aside in the ‘80s to write articles, review studies, appeal permits and trek from Haines and Whitehorse to Victoria, Ottawa, and D.C., time and again. On the drive to the put-in, our shuttle driver rattled off the names of locals who had been part of the campaign.

Behind every river we run today are the stories of people who fought hard to protect those places, years, decades or centuries ago. On the Grand Canyon, it’s names we know well: Martin Litton and David Brower. More often, it’s just hard-working locals. On the Tat, the only names most people recognize are Gore’s and maybe conservation photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum. So, let’s hear it for Ric Careless, Michael Down, David Evans, Heather Hamilton, Stephen Herrero, and more I’ll never know.

Neil Schulman writes and paddles from Portland, Oregon.

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river. | Featured photo: Neil Schulman

Wood-canvas canoes are tougher than you think

By

Conor Mihell

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June 2, 2020

There’s no time to hesitate in the rapids of this steep, shallow, unnamed river, deep in the wilderness of northern Quebec. But my wife Kim and I did just that, second-guessing our line in a narrow chute and coming to a sudden stop on a rounded rock, with the current racing by. The mid-section of our canoe bowed inwards and our packs crested the gunwales, just as I catapulted from the stern in a desperate effort to avoid wrapping around the boulder. Such a moment would be a harrowing near-miss in a plastic canoe, but we’re two weeks into a 45-day trip—paddling a gorgeous wood-canvas canoe.

Later, when I relate this story to Hugh Stewart, the craftsman who built my beloved Headwaters 17-foot Prospector, he merely shrugs. Maybe we should’ve scouted the rapid better, he intones.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: See all canoes ]

Stewart has spent a lifetime combatting the fragility myth of wood-canvas canoes. His passion for Canadian history and his extensive travels throughout the Far North demonstrate canoes like mine were designed for hard use—long before the space age and its so-called indestructible canoes. Aesthetics are one thing, but wood-canvas canoes are particularly easy to maintain on the trail and meant to be rebuilt. My Prospector has been through thousands of kilometers of hard wilderness travel, including powerful whitewater rivers and shallow streams, its hull kept up with a small repair kit and a bit of know-how.

That night in northern Quebec, I flipped the canoe and inspected the canvas—something I habitually do almost every day. Impacts with rocks can rub through the waterproof filler or may puncture or cut the skin altogether. Stewart notes that most damage often occurs when a partially-floating canoe rubs onshore over a lunch break or while its paddlers inspect a rapid or portage trail.

The antidote to worn or torn canvas is a contact adhesive—Ambroid is the traditional staple, but since this hobby store glue was discontinued, it has been replaced with generic contact cement or butyrate (also known as airplane dope, used in the construction of fabric-covered aircraft). Simply smearing a little on the canvas plasticizes the filler and waterproofs thin spots.

[ Also read: What Is So Special About Wooden Canoes And Their Builders ]

Larger tears require contact adhesive and a patch; a piece of cotton bandana cut to cover the hole and saturated with glue works well. Long-lasting repairs require dry canvas, so wait until the canoe has time to dry at the end of the day. “Burning on a patch” is a quick method of repairing torn canvas on a wet canoe: smear adhesive on the canoe and light it on fire, promptly drying the canvas. Then cut and apply a patch. Contact adhesive dries quickly and the canoe will be serviceable in mere minutes.

Occasionally, impact with a rock will fracture the canoe’s planking; a hard hit may even break ribs—you’ll know when this happens because it sounds like gunfire. Often this sort of damage is merely cosmetic. But sometimes it requires immediate attention—like last summer, on the coast of Hudson Bay, when powerful winds cartwheeled a friend’s brand-new canoe across the bouldery tide flats, leaving its innards a splintery mess.

[ Plan your next adventure with the Paddling Trip Guide ]

The repair was daunting, but we had plenty of time to work on it while the wind continued to blow. We started by carefully pushing and levering the broken cedar frame into a facsimile of its original shape. Then, I emptied my repair kit of the squares of tin I pre-cut at home (scraps of galvanized heating duct work well) to shore-up busted planking (the longitudinal strips of wood that comprise the hull), wedging the metal between the ribs. Broken ribs are usually strong enough to maintain a canoe’s shape, but if necessary, they can later be reinforced with a piece of wood spanning the break—a repair best done at home.

Stewart’s stepsons once completed an impressive field repair using lengths of split saplings to reinforce broken gunwales and a piece of birchbark to patch a massive tear in the canvas—salvaging a canoe that was wrapped around a rock on Quebec’s Moisie River.

The beauty is, back in the workshop, a well-used or badly damaged wood-canvas canoe can be fully restored, its canvas stripped to replace broken parts and rebuilt to look and function like new.

Conor Mihell is an award-winning environmental and adventure travel writer based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. He disappears into the wilds of Nunavik each summer in his wood-canvas canoe.

Is wood-canvas the toughest expedition canoe you’ve never paddled? Maybe, says writer Conor Mihell. | Featured photo: Virginia Marshall

20 industry experts on predictions, consolidation, trade wars and the near future of everything

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

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June 2, 2020

The Waves of Change — What's beyond the next wave might surprise you. Photo: Rob MacQuarrie

What will the 2010s be remembered for?

The meteoric rise of SUP. MTI’s first booth at Surf Expo was in 2010. Most buyers had no idea life jackets were a United States Coast Guard regulation if you were paddling outside of the surf zone. Most buyers are now much better informed and educate customers about PFD use.
—Lili Colby, Co-founder, MTI Adventurewear

The gadgetization of paddling has skyrocketed. Time was, you needed a boat, life jacket and a paddle to get on the water. Now, you need the helmet, the drysuit, the GPS unit (so you know exactly where you are when you die), the neoprene gloves, the GoreTex socks, the waterproof phone cover and lanyard, the this and the that, in all the right shades and colors, made from the latest materials and manufactured by the groovy brand-de-jour. It’s like you can’t go paddling if you don’t have all the multi-colored shit.
—James Raffan, Explorer and Author

Disruption. Heraclitus once said, “The only constant in life is change,” and boy, was he right. There were more shifts in the past decade than the previous three. Kayak fishing went from a new sport to the fastest growing paddlesport and then to a new level of maturity and saturation we’ve never seen. Standup paddling went from prosperity to cessation faster than a shooting star. With the discontinuation of Royalex boats, canoeing went from an industry of sheer disquietude to a sport embraced by hipsters and retirees alike. Kayaking has experienced recession from longboats to short boats, putting strain on everyone from big conglomerate organizations to mom-and-pop shops looking to differentiate from Bass Pro and Walmart.
—Andrew Stern, Marketing Manager, Bending Branches

Stagnation, little innovation, and 80 percent of whitewater dealers closing their doors as companies—dealers and manufacturers—struggle to stay afloat as they sell into a market that demands that kayaks sell for less than it costs to make them.
—Corran Addison, Owner, Soul Waterman

What issue should all paddlers be paying attention to?

Paddler as consumer, driving the engines of commerce and environmental destruction. There seems to be a huge constituency—and the size of the group may be inflated by a skewed presence on social media—who are more interested in hedonistic river bagging and whitewater porn selfies than environmental philanthropy.
—James Raffan, Explorer and Author

In addition to ensuring access to quality education for all paddlers, we have to turn our attention to the 2020 elections and the state of our environment. Many individuals paddle to be in nature and get away from the hustle and bustle of their daily lives. As with every political cycle, the representatives we elect can have a profound impact on our ability to access pristine areas or limit and destroy our natural resources. We have to be an active participant and the voice of nature.
—Joshua Hall , Outdoor Program Manager, Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission

The “Amazon effect” is hurting specialty retailers, who are the core and heartbeat of the paddlesports industry. Many of our dealers are not hitting sales targets and are overstocked. With unstable weather conditions and more online shopping, many stores are struggling. Therefore, fewer paddlers are learning and engaging in paddlesports, creating uncertainty for everyone’s future.
—Andrew Stern, Marketing Manager, Bending Branches

What are you most excited about in paddlesports in 2020?

Paddlesports, particularly kayak angling, has reached an innovate-or-die stage. Kayak anglers are a passionate, tech-forward group. Anglers demand a product that makes fishing easier, so if you’re a paddlesports business that isn’t innovating within this space, you’re not growing. As the top fishing kayak brands compete and innovate, the consumer benefits. As a passionate angler myself, this excites me.
—Ryan Lilly, Brand & Product Manager, Johnson Outdoors Watercraft Division

Innovation and design exploration are still thriving. The new wave of creek boats with big bow rocker with playful edges and shapes make for fun sporty rides, and the reimagination of slice is a great trend. It’s always been a fun way to play the river, but now the hulls are better and they are way more comfortable.
—Shane Benedict, Co-Founder, Liquidlogic Kayaks

The way video producers portray wilderness canoeing. Folks like Chris Prouse, Northern Scavengers and the venerable Kevin Callan. For years I wondered how to attract more paddlers—particularly younger paddlers—and YouTube and other online video platforms are allowing our passion to reach a broader audience at their convenience.
—Simon Gardner, Co-founder, Adirondack Canoe Company

I am still excited about the sheer joy people have for being on the water. On the West Coast, we see a lot of retired paddlers out sea kayaking and living life to the fullest, and clubs seem to be thriving and are bringing folks together. We see these folks building their skills with ongoing courses and even coaching tours. We also find many people, living in smaller spaces and working and living downtown, are not buying gear but choose to rent.
—Brian Henry, Co-owner, Ocean River Sports

I’m excited about kayaking used for travel in combination with other multisport disciplines. Weight, size and packability of products are becoming ever more important as people take on multisport adventures. Making sure products keep pace with how athletes and adventurers of all calibers are trying to push boundaries is exciting as a designer.
—Mark “Snowy” Robertson, Designer

What is the biggest industry challenge in 2020?

Honestly, I think the industry’s biggest challenge isn’t cheap price point boats. I think our bigger challenge is adapting to consumer trends. As consumer groups shift to Gen X and Millennials, we’re seeing consumers with distinctly different expectations and motivations. If we can’t figure out how to meet the needs of the ever-evolving consumer, we’ll continue to be a challenged industry.
—Ryan Lilly, Brand & Product Manager, Johnson Outdoors Watercraft Division

It seems planned obsolescence has become a business model with many manufacturers.
—Tom Remsing, Co-Owner, Eddyline Kayaks

The average selling price has come way down on paddleboards over the past five years. This is a good thing, but buyer beware! There are good options at fair prices, but also plenty of crappy products attempting to reach the lowest price while sacrificing quality and performance.
—Jimmy Blakeney, Sales, Marketing & Digital Commerce Manager, BIC Sport

Import tariffs. This was a hot topic as it hit the industry in 2018 with very little warning. As an industry, everyone did well to step up to the challenge with short notice. Moving forward, the industry is still uneasy if import tariffs will increase, maintain, or even disappear.
—Shaun Allumbaugh, Whitewater Division Sale Manager, AIRE

Big box retailers are often where people buy their first boats because they’re cheap. Unfortunately, the chain stores often do not have staff who understand the boats and gear and cannot give good advice. It is so important for anyone paddling on the ocean or big bodies of water to have a safe boat built for the conditions, and for the paddler to get the training to be safe out there.
—Brian Henry, Co-Owner, Ocean River Sports

What tough issues are affecting paddlers?

The most controversial issue [in SUP] seems to be an accepted and efficient governing body. The fight between the International Canoe Federation and International Surf Association over who will take SUP to the Olympics frustrates the pro level while simultaneously alienating the enthusiast and feeder paddler streams.
—John Beausang, Publisher, Distressed Mullet

The best news for the industry is the demise of Sun Dolphin, the largest maker of kayak-shaped objects in the U.S. If you had a pulse and a storefront you could sell them, and most of the kayaking deaths in our region over the past few years were people who bought a kayak from a hardware store or gas station, took it out when the air was warm but the water was freezing, and capsized. Kayak-shaped objects do nothing to advance the sport but do a lot to hurt it. I may be putting a target on my back, but good riddance.
—Darren Bush, Owner, Rutabaga Paddlesports

Social media brings out some of the very worst in whitewater kayaking. Once the priority becomes posting rather than paddling, it brings artificial, low-quality content. People tend to show only what they think will make them look better or what will generate more likes. The audience often takes the images they see for absolute reality, but it is only a projection… I hate social media, but I also find it fascinating. And as a girl from France doing a niche, male, North American-dominated sport, it’s the most efficient way to get exposure and opportunities. It’s complex.
—Nouria Newman, Pro Whitewater Kayaker

Double blade paddling a canoe rather than single blade. Yes, I’ve used a double blade to help solo me across a big lake. It works, especially if you’re in a low-lying canoe design. But to use solely for an extended wilderness trip with a mix of rivers, streams, ponds and lakes makes little sense to me. I’ve joked double-bladed canoeists don’t know how to paddle. It’s meant in good fun—or is it?
—Kevin Callan, The Happy Camper

What does the future of paddling hold?

We are going into the “Age of Amazon” and the method of purchasing is online. This requires kayaks to be sent with UPS or FedEx, not big trucks… Kayaks shipped directly and quickly is the future of paddlesports.
—Tim Niemier, Owner, OnWater Designs

The explosion of cheap, down-market kayaks is disturbing. Many of these crafts do not address adequate safety and at the same time, teach new paddlers an unrealistic entry price. American manufacturers still face a significantly restricted market in the European Union due to tariffs. Additionally, the U.S. dollar is very strong against nearly all export markets. Taken together, our global sales have slowed.
—Bill Kueper, Vice-President, Wenonah Canoe and Current Designs Kayaks

There’s a good deal of uncertainty in the industry right now due to mergers and acquisitions, and I think that will be the driving story in paddlesports as the industry realigns and settles back into the new normal. At Pyranha, we are grateful not to be part of that story and we’ll be celebrating 50 years of business next year. Whitewater participation is in a really good position right now, which is exciting for us. Lots of young kids are getting in the sport, and tomorrow’s Dane Jackson is somewhere in that demographic.
—Chris Hipgrave, Pyranha Kayaks

As SUP matures, interesting trends are emerging. I never saw foil becoming a thing, especially given how it targets a very small subset of the sport. Nevertheless, foil keeps gaining popularity and becoming a regular feature in many lineups. I predict it will remain a small subset of SUP, but a growing one. On the race front, it’s also worth keeping an eye on the resurgence of the One Class series. SIC Maui and the WPA, together with other possible racing endorsing groups, are creating races with more accessible boards and formats, with the ability for brands to participate.
—Andre Niemeyer, SUP Connect

Canoe tripping is gaining popularity, especially with couples in their late twenties to early thirties, and especially with new immigrants. We’re not just a bunch of Bill Mason look-alikes anymore, with grey beards and stained Tilley hats. We’re a blend of young and old and multicultured.
—Kevin Callan, The Happy Camper

How do we translate recreational boaters into the enthusiasts? The sport needs people who see value in a $500 paddle. People aren’t going to stop paddling, because it’s fantastic, but how do you get people to buy into the lifestyle and gain more demand for premium products? It boils down to the people who you do it with—everyone likes kayaking, but getting people connected with family and friends or a club and on the water gets them hooked.
—Simon Coward, Owner, Aquabatics

What’s beyond the next wave might surprise you. Photo: Rob MacQuarrie

The tools to living the good life have been in your garage all along

By

Jeff Jackson

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June 2, 2020

https://www.amazon.ca/Rolvsx-Metallica-Mouth-Muffle-Dust-Proof-Anti-Haze/dp/B07KFWZ3VD — Gear is like a gas—it will expand to fit the available space. | Photo: Cristin Plaice

I know the river running season is drawing to a close when I can see my garage floor. To some, this would sound like good news, but it always comes with a tinge of sadness. It’s the same kind of sadness that comes while marveling at the beauty of October falling leaves. It marks the end of a season. There is satisfaction, some sense of relief, and a little feeling of loss for what is gone. But there is also contentment in knowing my time was well spent.

From mid-May to early October, my garage floor is ground zero for repeated packing and unpacking for guiding trips or my private adventures. The back wall is all bikes; the left side fly fishing rods, nets, waders of all sizes, and rain jackets; the right side is a drying line for wet kayak gear, paddles and throw bags. Meanwhile the middle is a disorganized stack of tents, sleeping pads, various sized kitchen boxes and drybags.

Out front the trailer holds my raft with the rowing frame that goes on or off depending on the day, plus a jumble of kayaks, both plastic and inflatable, and two canoes. And then there is the stuff that stays in the truck for the full six months. Satellite communicator, power packs, a cooler I had to mortgage my house for, sunscreen and bug spray, river shoes, and assorted hats and sunglasses. All told, everything it takes to guide a fly fishing trip, teach kayaking and take a family on a multi-day. All told, the tools of my craft and a way to make a living. All told, a small mountain of gear I cannot do without.

English designer and poet William Morris is a giant when looking back on Victorian-era history, at the close of the first industrial revolution. Morris was a founding figure in the Arts and Crafts movement of this era, a design style that emerged in response to the grime of the industrial revolution masked by what he perceived to be gaudy, ornate and useless fashion of the day.

Gear is like a gas—it will expand to fit the available space. | Photo: Cristin Plaice

Arts and Crafts grew beyond style to become a social movement, focused on craftsmanship, simplicity and anti-industrialization. Morris believed in neither luxury nor cheap trash. This movement was influential, inspiring architecture and design for half a century, until replaced by Modernism in the 1930s.

Morris’ most enduring legacy is perhaps this line, supposedly quoted from a public lecture in 1880: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This line has been abused by many over the ages, used to justify consumerism and an attachment to stuff. This could not be further from Morris’ intent.

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For Morris, beautiful was equated with simple, refined, useful and living art. Our things were meant to be used. Our things were meant to contribute to a way of life that in itself builds the beauty of which he spoke. Our things are supposed to be the tools to live a good life. You can see, I expect, where I am going with this.

Much of the great gear pile in my garage, and now being put away for winter, would qualify under Morris’ definition of useful and beautiful. Our outdoor gear tends not towards ornamentation but simplicity and functionality. The best of it, the items we go-to year after year, likely have some innate crafted beauty to them. My canoe paddle, my 20-year-old fold-up backpacking stove, the machined pulleys in my pin kit, and the reels on my fly rods make me marvel.

They are graceful in design, undeniably utilitarian, yet a joy to use, hold and look at. As an end in and of themselves, they are useful. But more importantly, as a means to an end, they enable us to spend time on rivers. They enable our recreation and an opportunity to create. They are beautiful tools; tools building a type of life valuable and worth living.

Jeff Jackson is a professor at Algonquin College on the banks of the Ottawa River.

Gear is like a gas—it will expand to fit the available space. | Photo: Cristin Plaice